The ever-increasing complexity and performance requirements of portable media devices call for effective system-level power management in Integrated circuits (ICs). Having one or more Switchable Power-Domains in Core-logic is a well-known low-power methodology that is employed for ICs in portable media devices. When a supply of a specific Power Domain is powered down, the outputs of that power-domain serving as inputs to IO (input/output) circuits are no longer valid and these IO circuits need to be tristated to avoid possible leakage current. An IO circuit drive/receive signals on a PAD to interface with the outside world. If the IO circuit is not properly tristated, it results in high leakage currents (conduction currents) from the PAD into the IO circuit. A similar condition results when the IO supply voltage is powered up or down, while the PAD is held at a logic-HIGH. Serial Low-power Inter-chip Media Bus (SLIMbus) is a standard interface between baseband or application processors and peripheral components in portable media devices. The SLIMbus is a failsafe interface and requires the devices to have ultra low PAD current (or pin current) during powering-up, powering down and in stable power state in portable media devices.